Seth MacFarlane's The Orville

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The Orville is a satirical science fiction drama created by Seth MacFarlane and modeled after classic episodic Star Trek with a modern flair.

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aeronmelon@lemmy.world

The Orville Rewatch Party 2x2 "Primal Urges" (infosec.pub)

submitted 5 days ago by aeronmelon@lemmy.world to c/theorville@lemmy.world

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WARNING: This thread WILL contain unhidden spoilers for this episode and every episode before it. You are allowed to talk about future episodes of the series, but put ANY information that comes after this episode behind spoiler tags.

The Orville season 2, episode 2 "Primal Urges"

Written by Wellesley Wild, directed by Kevin Hooks.

As the Orville observes a star destroying the last planet that was part of its former system, evidence of artificial construction and humanoid activity is found beneath the rapidly decomposing surface. At the same time, Bortus increasingly avoids spending time with his mate Klyden (Chad L. Coleman). Just as the Orville mounts a last-minute rescue operation, Bortus' desperate search for escape leads him to accidentally compromise the Orville's systems and put the mission and the entire ship in jeopardy.

Originally released: 3 January 2019

Check here to find out where you can stream or digitally purchase The Orville in your country. The Orville season 2 is also available on DVD.

What did you think?

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[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

Do not adjust your chronometers. Going forward, the weekly posts will be one day later due to my schedule.

We will have pudding on Monday from now on.

[–] vaguerant@fedia.io 3 points 5 days ago

From a behind-the-scenes perspective, the most important thing to note about this episode is that it's actually from season 1. If you thought it was weird that the first season had 12 episodes and the second had 14, instead of the more common 13-episode season, here's your answer. I don't think we've had any formal explanation of what happened, but MacFarlane did say that 20th Century Fox's corporate board raised a note about the network broadcast standards in relation to this episode. Maybe it was just too sexually arousing to air.

It was originally supposed to air as episode 12, so despite jumping seasons, it's really only been shuffled down two episodes. They did have to reshoot the scenes with Topa in them, because there is supposed to have been a small time jump between seasons and season 2 Topa is older than the child they filmed with previously. It's interesting to think that this episode was originally intended to air before "Ja'loja", as you might have expected this episode to change that one. Then again, that episode showed deceptively little of the Bortus-Klyden relationship.

Spoilers for Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3, Episode 21 "Hollow Pursuits"

This episode's plot is quite reminiscent of TNG's "Hollow Pursuits", with a crew member (ab)using the holodeck/simulator in questionably horny ways to relieve stress in their personal life. A major advantage this episode has is that we already know Bortus, while TNG's equivalent episode created Lt. Barclay whole cloth for that episode. I feel this is a strength offered by The Orville's tone: TNG was probably hesitant to depict one of its established characters as addicted to holo-pornography, while The Orville wasn't.

While I ended up really enjoying Lt. Barclay, I do think it's tough to find him likeable in that first episode, primarily because of the ways he uses his fellow crew members in his fantasies. I wonder if The Orville took any lessons from that: Bortus's fantasies all appear to involve entirely fictional characters. Speaking in present-day terms, what he's doing is closer to standard porn, while Barclay was engaging in something akin to deep fakes of his co-workers. But maybe I'm reading too much into the parallels or lack thereof.

I think this episode is missing something as far as exploring the repercussions of Topa's reassignment. We don't seem to get any indication that that is at the root of Bortus's porn addiction until the episode is about 2/3 complete. As a viewer, you might bring that context with you, but if the show was peppering in any foreshadowing about it, I didn't catch it. The episode is kind of goofy and jokey for the first 29 minutes, then we get the reveal and finally have something to really bite into.

The conclusion, with most of the potential refugees forced to remain on the planet and die, reinforces the tonal shift in the last third of the episode. We get a touching farewell from First Minister Theece to her partner and child, a scene which deserves a better episode. Ultimately, I just don't feel like the comedy is really integrated very well into this episode compared to some of the others we've seen. There's so much here for the episode to dig into, but it's all dumped into the final act instead of throughout.

Ultimately, this one feels like a missed opportunity. I don't hate it or anything, it's no "Cupid's Dagger", I just feel certain there's a better episode buried inside this one.

At least we get this exchange:

Lt. Malloy: "Captain, we have another problem." Capt. Mercer: "Oh, neat, what is it?"